


Just to your soul (and mine as well)

by socknonny



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: (implied not explicitly written), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Handcuffed Together, Handcuffs, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25739161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socknonny/pseuds/socknonny
Summary: Billy's finally getting out of this town. There's just one tiny thing he has to take care of first...He has to tell Harrington.Why is that so damn hard?
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 12
Kudos: 192





	Just to your soul (and mine as well)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gothyringwald](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothyringwald/gifts).



> A gift for gothy!!!! I hope you enjoy <333

Billy really thought he’d have made it out of this shithole by now. Even if his father’s intimidation techniques had failed to scare him away, and his worsening reputation with the majority of hicks hadn’t made him run, being possessed by an other-dimension beast should have done the job and sent him packing.

But no. He’s still here. Because there’s one loose end he can’t leave undone.

Billy drops his cigarette and crunches it beneath his boot. He isn’t meant to smoke anymore, but it’s not like he was meant to in the first place… So what does it really matter? A car passes by and a kid stares at him from the back window, face pressed to the glass. Billy could pretend the kid is longingly admiring the arcade, but he knows it isn’t true.

Word travels fast in a small town. Secrets never last. He’s pretty sure he heard one kid call him Michael Myers the other day.

It stings how much he would have loved that nickname once. Now it just makes him sick.

The door to the arcade swings open, and laughter escapes for long enough that Billy rethinks his plan. Again. And when Max’s curious face appears in the window—eyes narrowing into a shrewd glare when she sees him—he decides,  _ fuck it _ , there’s always tomorrow. 

He’ll talk to Harrington tomorrow.

The door swings again, and there’s some sort of commotion inside, and then several familiar faces tumble out one by one. The closest—Lucas—groans and spins in a confused circle.

“What are you  _ doing?  _ We just got here!”

The sentiment is echoed by several of the others, and Billy  _ thinks  _ they’re complaining to Max, who’s pushed them out the door for some reason, but it’s irrelevant because it’s high time Billy got out of here. Those kids are… strange around him lately. Like they’re walking on eggshells but also kind of want to see what he’d do if they didn’t. Like maybe they’re imagining  _ him _ as an eggshell crushing beneath their boots.

He doesn’t blame them. Billy doesn’t blame anyone anymore; he’s got no energy for it.

“Hey, isn’t that the Hargrove kid?”

And now the policeman’s spotted him. The one who nearly died, and who seems to know eerily more about Billy than he should. Billy has officially been here too long.

But it’s Harrington who reaches him first. 

“What the  _ fuck _ ?” he hisses, shoving Billy on the shoulder.

Old habits die hard, and Billy tenses, turning around slow and mean. His lips are quirked into a smile before he even knows what’s happening.

“What’s the deal, pretty boy?” He shoves Steve back, two fingers right on the chest. Steps in close. “Not even a ‘hello’ first?”

Steve doesn’t back down. Billy loves that about him.

That’s the problem.

“I saw your car.” 

Steve’s voice is even lower now. They have an audience: a handful of nosy children and one policeman who would only have to throw a dart at a board to pick a reason to lock Billy up. Billy’s thankful that Steve doesn’t want them to hear, even if it’s for different reasons.

“What of it?”

“When were you going to tell me you were leaving?”

See, that’s the thing. Billy wasn’t. He’s had his car packed for three weeks, and each time he comes close to telling Steve he’s out of here, nice knowing you, he can’t do it.

Eighteen years waiting to see the back of his dad’s head, and Billy comes unstuck because of one boy. He’s always known he’s a weak son of a bitch for a pretty face, but this is a new low, even for him.

It shouldn’t matter. It’s not like they’re anything. One drunken night spilling their fears, sharing their trauma over interdimensional monsters, and fessing up to a reluctant friendship doesn’t mean Steve wants Billy to stay. 

The problem is that Billy wants it to. He wants to mean as much to Steve as Steve means to him, and he can’t bring himself to find out he doesn’t. He can’t bring himself to stop imagining there was a moment that night, one small moment, when Steve’s expression had been a reflection of Billy’s own.

“What’s it matter?” Billy leans in close and grins. “Surely you’ve got someone else to cry to at night?”

It’s a low blow. Billy’s good at them—the best. They let him make a quick getaway if he only has the balls to take it.

Steve’s eyes narrow. Here it comes: anger, hurt, pain. Steve will lash out, and that will be Billy’s final thread cut free.

“You know what I think, Hargrove?” Steve snaps, already stepping backwards, walking away. “I think you’re a coward.” No shit. “Go on. Run away, then.”

There’s a commotion behind Steve, but it doesn’t matter because Billy’s got what he came here for. He doesn’t have to think about Steve anymore, doesn’t have to wonder. People who look at Billy the way Steve is looking at him now don’t want Billy to stay. It’s the only thing in this world that Billy is sure about, the only thing he knows. The knowledge is almost a comfort.

Then why does his chest feel split open?

He frowns unwillingly, searching for the words his racing pulse is trying to propel him towards even as he fights against saying them.  _ Move _ , Billy. You’re done. It’s over.

Let him go.

Ice-cold metal snicks around his wrist, and when he looks down in shock, he sees Max staring at him with that same expression from the window. It takes half a second longer for him to realize she’s just cuffed him with the Chief of Police’s handcuffs.

Another half second to realize Steve is cuffed to the other end.

“What the—”

Before he can finish the sentence, Max swallows the key.

“What the  _ fuck _ , Max?” Steve bellows.

“Work your shit out,” she snaps, just before the others descend on her in a swarm of buzzing protest.

Billy might have been moving through mud before, trying to delay anything that could be mistaken as action, but his adrenaline kicks in now, and there’s no way in hell he’s letting these shitheads weigh in on his predicament.

“Run, Harrington,” Billy mutters, and then he’s running, taking advantage of his extra weight and strength over Harrington to pull the reluctant boy along.

Of course, Harrington protests, but it isn’t half as much as Billy expects.

When Billy looks back, confused as the sound of chasing kids fades away, Steve’s expression is strange. Cheeks bright, eyes wide, hair mussed from the wind…

There’s something there.

Billy turns away; it’s just another lie he needs to stop imagining.

They stop running when they reach the alley that runs behind the shopping strip. Billy tugs on the handcuffs linking them, ignoring the way his heart flutters in his chest as Steve stumbles into him, and ducks into the shadows.

“They stopped chasing ages ago, dickhead,” Steve murmurs, running his free hand through his hair. “Half of them have asthma. You didn’t have to go so hard.”

“Sure I did,” Billy protests, searching the ground for a pin or something he can use to pick the lock. The oversized trashcans stink out the alley so badly, he can’t help wrinkling his nose. “Those kids are like parasites. Didn’t want to give them a chance to latch on.”

His half-assed search is interrupted when Steve pulls on the connection between them and bodily hefts Billy against the wall. For a moment, Billy is winded, unable to speak or breathe simply because Steve is holding him there, eyes fixed to his.

The position should be familiar in all the wrong ways, making him think of order and control, but Billy’s heart thuds wildly as his traiterous brain imagines all sorts of other meanings behind Steve’s position. He should have run while he had the chance. 

That’s the worst thing about being a coward: you keep trying not to be.

“Stop. Running,” Steve insists. For the first time, Billy realizes how bright his eyes are—how panicked. “Please.”

It’s the  _ please _ that does it.

Everything in Billy just… sinks. His knees, his stomach, his will to try. He droops against the wall and lets Steve hold him there, wishing it meant what he wanted it to.

“Why?” Billy rasps, shocked to hear the word come out so small. “I thought you’d be happy to see me go.”

Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that.

Steve’s eyes widen, and a furrow appears in his brow. He shifts his grip, dropping the forearm that was holding Billy’s chest against the wall and just standing there, free hand propped beside Billy’s head.

But their wrists are still connected, and despite the fact that Billy feels like he’s floating, gravity hasn’t stopped, which means their hands are both brushing Billy’s thigh. Steve doesn’t even seem to notice.

“Why the hell would I want you to go?” The frown deepens, and now he does pull back. Billy’s chest aches at the distance. “So it didn’t mean anything, then?”

“What didn’t?” His heart picks up again, racing so hard he thinks he’s going to be sick.

“I thought…” Steve shakes his head. “Never mind.” He steps back. 

Billy lets him go.

Except, he doesn’t. Because their hands are still joined, and as Steve backs away, more and more frantic with each step, Billy can’t help but follow.

Bambi-eyes wide, Steve looks like a deer caught in headlights, and Billy is so, so fucking sick of being the predator.

“It did,” he says before his brain has thought it through. He’d bet large sums of money on the idea that his brain has never been less involved in his own actions.

Steve stops.

“I can’t stay in this town,” Billy says, voice rising even as he tries to quieten it. “I can’t look at their faces, knowing what I did, and even before that… I’m not a  _ small town guy _ , Steve. You know that. I know how I look, but places like this, they eat guys like me up.” He widens his eyes, begging Steve to read between the lines, to understand why a guy like him could never survive in a town like this, where rumours gain a life of their own and everyone’s business belongs to everyone else. 

He shouldn’t be admitting this, but he can’t run, and his mouth won’t shut up.

Steve wets his lips. “They don’t have to know.”

Billy’s mind stops, record-scratch sharp.  _ What? _

“You’d be amazed the secrets we keep in this town,” Steve continues, just as desperately.

Is Steve saying what Billy thinks he’s saying?

“Yeah.” Billy forces himself to laugh. “You hide monsters.” His mouth twists around the word, grimacing. That’s exactly how it would feel, to stay here, in secret. “I don’t want to be a monster anymore.”

He doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until Steve’s face falls. Fuck. Billy stumbles backwards, tugging uselessly on the hand that joins him to Steve, but it only brings Steve closer.

Closer, closer.

Steve trips into him, hands braced against Billy’s arms as they barrel into the shadowed arch of a random building. Shadow mixes across their faces, catching in the reflection of the grimy window panes stuck in the door, and Billy sees the truth this time, mirrored back at him from shattered glass.

It isn’t in his head.

Steve’s face reflects the same expression as Billy’s: eyes wide, bright with emotion…

Dark with want.

It’s Steve who moves first, because even with all the evidence laid out before him, Billy can’t bring himself to believe it. He pushes into Billy, crowding him against the wall, and kisses him roughly—but it’s a roughness that comes with urgency, with desperation. Not with force.

Not with pain.

The second it becomes obvious Billy isn’t running away, Steve slows down. The kiss turns soft, lips full and gentle as they learn each other’s pace, and it sets something unfamiliar burning in Billy’s chest. Hot and aching, he doesn’t recognize this sensation. He doesn’t recognize anything about this, because he’s kissing Steve Harrington and no one is bleeding and Billy isn’t a monster, and… 

And the look on Steve’s face might be more than just  _ want _ .

It is on Billy’s, at least. It always has been.

The realization slices through him, violent shock snapping him out of the present. Billy breaks away, coughing. 

Steve shakes his head, leaning back just far enough for Billy to see he’s smiling. “You really shouldn’t smoke that shit anymore. That thing punctured your lung.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna quit,” Billy says with a grin. He even means it.

The sound of a skateboard rolling along concrete is their only warning before Max slides into view, shoulders hunched, expression profoundly judgemental.

“Hop wants his cuffs back,” she huffs, kicking her board up and staring at the two of them. “So hurry up.”

“Um…” Steve holds up their joined hands. “How stupid do you think I am? I’m not going near Hop until these are off. He’ll stick us in a cell as punishment for letting you shitheads do this.”

Max shoots him a withering look and then throws a small, bright object at them. Billy catches it at the last second and stares at the familiar key. He looks up at Max.

“You really thought I swallowed it?” She rolls her eyes. “Idiots.”

Then she skates away.

“So…” Steve says quietly, looking away as Billy slides the key into the lock. “You’re leaving Hawkins?”

The metal falls away as something colder slides into Billy’s heart. “I can’t stay.”

He can’t. This town will eat him alive. That is, if the people don’t get to him first. It’s only a matter of time; small towns can’t keep secrets like his.

“Can I come?”

Billy flinches, revealing more than he means to when he meets Steve’s gaze, hand poised above the lock on Steve’s cuff. “You want to come with me?”

_ Nice, Billy… Try to sound a little more insecure next time, why don’t you… _

Steve grins at him, cheeks pink as his eyes slide away, embarrassed. He clears his throat. “I don’t actually think I could let you go.”

The smile takes over Billy’s face without his control. He doesn’t even try to take it back. 

“Then, yeah, Harrington. I’m leaving this town.” He slides the cuff off Steve’s wrist. “And I’m taking you with me.”


End file.
